It's Hard to Steer a Parked Car
Lately, I’ve had a single phrase stuck in my head –
“It’s hard to steer a parked car.”
Several comments and situations have triggered my recurring thought:
A young adult overwhelmed by the vastness of career opportunities
A church member trying to identify her spiritual gifts
A friend longing to start his own business “one day”
A couple, not speaking, but wanting a better marriage
A leadership team needing to pivot, but fearing responsibility
A neighbor, curious about God, but intimidated by church
An addict, unsure about changing friend groups
It’s hard to steer a parked car.
Somehow, we’ve gotten it in our heads that one must be motionless to change directions. Yet, that’s not how life tends to work. I love to read & learn as much as anyone I know. I appreciate planning and preparing. But nothing replaces doing. God rarely reveals steps 6 through 10 before we start steps 1 through 5. We cannot simply will ourselves to transform. If we want to experience transformation, we must first start moving in what we think is a positive direction, knowing we can pivot or turn as we go.
It’s only through getting one’s boots dirty through various work experiences, that one can start to discover a fulfilling career path. Then one can ask, “What was the best day of work I’ve had in the last three months?” or “What was the worst day of work I’ve had in the last three months?” These questions whet the honing process that eventually creates a razor-sharp understanding of one’s preferences and potential strengths.
While kids and young adults in my generation were immersed in our surroundings and had serious deficiencies of self-awareness (yes, it’s my peers who think that if we can find those radioactive shrimp at Wal-Mart, we might become the next superhuman superheroes), many of today’s young adults are drowning in introspection and have no real grasp of the world around them. They think that if they thoroughly understand themselves then they can chart their path through life before they take step one. But one cannot understand oneself apart from one’s context. They are hyper-focused on themselves, yet paralyzed by their lack of engagement in the world they need to fit. Without experience, they haven’t a clue what they enjoy, and without knowing what they enjoy, they have no idea where their strengths may lie or how to endure the fluctuation of circumstances they’ll face.
Self-efficacy, rather than self-awareness, is the strongest predictor of one’s resilience, persistence, ability to focus on long-term goals, and aptitude for pursuing extraordinary accomplishments. Self-efficacy is the confidence that comes from experience. It’s the result of driving rather than simply reading, or even memorizing, the driver’s manual.
I spent years teaching people various approaches to narrow one’s options in determining one’s spiritual gifts, but even then, I taught that you cannot know your spiritual gift(s) without engaging in ministry. There are absolutely no Biblical grounds for identifying one’s spiritual gift(s) before serving God and others. The more one serves, the more obvious one’s gifts become.
It's hard to steer a parked car.
You can speculate. You may even make an “educated guess.” But you will not fully know the benefits of developing healthy communication in your marriage, praying together with your spouse, launching a new business, accepting an invitation to church, leaving that destructive friend group… until you put it in drive.
Yes, everything I’ve mentioned involves risk. Though don’t believe the lie that parked cars are safe. I’ve had two friends, years apart, killed in parked cars. Each pulled over on the side of the interstate because they thought the weather made driving too dangerous. One Sunday, after church, Jo and I were parked in a Piggly Wiggly parking lot, far from the road, when a reckless driver turned too sharp and hit us head-on. My keys were in my hand. Another time, in college, I was completely stopped at a stop sign when a distracted driver ran into me. A third time, in Charleston, I was parked at a red light, when a drunk driver plowed into the back of my new car. That time I went to the hospital on a back-board.
You will not avoid risk by refusing to drive, though you may avoid your best life while trying to steer a parked car.